


A Lot More Than Nothing

by Sholio



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Hospitals, Missing Scene, reference to canon pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-07
Updated: 2009-01-07
Packaged: 2020-11-22 15:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: The truth hovers on Dan's tongue:He's gone to kill a man for you, kid.Missing scene for 1x16, "Not For Nothing": what happened at the hospital after Frank left chasing Baglia.





	A Lot More Than Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in 2009, and realized it wasn't among the fic that I had transferred over when I moved to AO3. I've been rewatching this show with a friend, so I figured I should get it added to my archive! When I posted this on LJ I originally titled it "The Dance", but decided to try to give it something a little better this time around. [Originally posted here.](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/611033.html)

"Frank! You're going to end up in jail!"

There's a part of Dan thinks he ought to give them privacy, as much as two people can have in a hospital corridor -- but he's still watching, still listening when Frank spins on his heel, fury trembling in every line of his body, the blond woman shouting after him as he storms through the doors of the intensive care ward.

The woman's hands fall to her side. She turns away, looks up, meets Dan's eyes. Something on her face is veiled too quick to catch. One hand slides to her coat, then away. Badge? Gun? Given the sort of people that they typically meet in their line of work, she's too controlled to be anything but a cop or a killer. Dan thinks probably cop. There was affection in Frank's hands, cupping her face.

So he waits, deliberately relaxes his tense shoulders as well as he can while balancing shakily on two fake pins. A doctor and two nurses are fussing over Vinnie, and Dan stands out of the way as the woman slips through the gap in the curtain. They size each other up -- the subtle dance of the undercover operative, wondering how much to share, what to give away.

The woman's hand slips into her coat, and Dan tries to stifle his flinch towards the gun he's not carrying. He sees the quick downward slide of her eyes as she catches his abortive move, sees her lips curl in a very faint trace of a smile. It's a badge that she flashes, as he'd gambled, not a gun.

"Lilla Warfield."

"Dan Burroughs." He reaches for his pocket, telegraphing the move clearly and pausing to give her a raised eyebrow, a tacit question. At her slight head-tilt of assent, he draws out his own badge and flips it open.

"OCB." She takes him in, and he can guess what she's seeing: the hair, the beard. Her eyes barely flick to his legs, no questions there -- but, then, he looks pretty much normal until he moves. 

"You work with Frank?" she says: a question, a challenge.

"I'm Vince's lifeline."

She nods, and looks back to the still body in the bed, half-hidden behind quietly efficient medical personnel. Dan jerks his chin towards a corner of the room, and steps that way, as quietly as he can. He sees how her eyes go to his lower body then, widening a little at his awkward gait before going deadpan again. 

"What was all that, out there?" he asks her softly, while the medical staff murmurs to each other, lost in their own world, not paying attention.

Lilla draws a breath, studies him for a moment. "I got a name on Terranova's shooter," she says quietly, and she sounds tired, the drawn-out strain that Dan remembers from his own long-ago field days. "Aldo Baglia. Frank went a little ..." She stops talking, searches Dan's face, and he knows his reaction betrayed him; he can see the pieces clicking into place behind her eyes. "Ahhh. Someone you know? Past case, maybe?"

"Something like that." The Steelgrave case is, apparently, the case that won't die. "You give him an address?"

"Just a workplace. Already had that." She drags her hand across her face, fingers running through her hair. Her voice drops a little more, softer than the beeping of Vinnie's monitors, the murmur of the doctors. "So, you tell me, Dan Burroughs. What do I do now?"

"It's your call." Her turf. Her choice. They both know it. He's not sure what she's asking him for -- what she is to Frank, or to him.

She snorts softly. "You _know_ him, Dan. You know him, I'm guessing, a lot better than I do. Do I call it in, get a team down here? Are they going to find Frank standing over this Baglia's body in some alley? Put him away, leave his kid without a father?" She takes a step forward, into his space, leans so close he can feel her breath ghost across his skin. "Or do I give him room to do his thing, let him run in there and blow the case wide open, screw it for everybody, let Baglia walk, Profitt walk? Or maybe just get himself killed?"

Dan's still feeling his way through this one -- because, wow, there is one _hell_ of a lot Frank doesn't put in his reports -- but on this, at least, he's pretty solid. "Frank won't blow your case, Warfield. He'll leave the way clear to sting the Profitts or --" Or he won't walk out alive, but Dan doesn't want to let himself go down that road. Frank's too damn smart to let himself get blown away by a small-time hood like Baglia. "He'll do it by the book," he says, hoping it's true. The only thing he knows right now about the contents of Frank's head is that it's a pretty screwed-up world in there.

Warfield's eyes search his, and he's not sure what she sees, but she looks away, back towards Vinnie. "Fuck," she says, and there's a world of weariness in that one syllable.

Dan laughs. He can't help it. "You can say that again, lady."

The medical staff are drifting away, and Lilla flashes a badge and asks a few questions. The answers are good -- blood pressure's up, pulse is strong. Dan listens with half an ear while he lets himself be drawn back into Vinnie's orbit. He's surprised to see that Vinnie's still awake, eyes fluttering sleepily, searching and coming to rest on him. There's confusion and then slow-dawning recognition. 

"Uncle Mike," Vinnie whispers through cracked lips.

"That's my name, nephew." Dan clasps a hand over the kid's. The doctor has left, and Lilla Warfield settles at Dan's shoulder, hands jammed in her pockets.

Vinnie's hand moves under Dan's, twisting to clasp back. "Wanted to meet you." The words are breathed, shaped with his lips more than actually spoken.

"Next time, just give me a call. No need to go to all this trouble."

Vinnie's laugh is a soft, puffed-out breath. "Frank?" he whispers, and he looks past Dan's shoulder, eyes going out of alignment. "Frank was here, I didn't dream that, right?"

The truth hovers on Dan's tongue: _He's gone to kill a man for you, kid._ Instead he squeezes Vinnie's hand with all the reassurance he's got. "Yeah, he was here. He's been here all along. He's just --"

"Dan," Lilla hisses, and the alarm in her voice is a cutting blade. Dan looks over his shoulder, following her gaze to the nurse's station and -- _shit!_ \-- he's never seen her in person, but Susan Profitt is instantly recognizable from the photos in her files, a tall coltish woman with a dark mane falling over the shoulders of her stylish gold blouse. Of _course_ the Profitts would have been notified when Vinnie woke up; it's going to be Grand Central Station in here before too long.

And him with nowhere to go.

"Sorry, Vince," he murmurs, leaning towards Vinnie's face so that Vinnie can focus on him, and he's just got to hope the kid's not so out of it he'll give away anything he shouldn't. Agent in deep cover, plus heavy painkillers -- bad combination, but not a damn thing they can do about it now. "Got company, gotta split. Hang in there, Vinnie; I won't go far." _Can't_ go far, really. He gives Vinnie's hand a firm squeeze -- because he's never felt for the kid like he does now, hurt and vulnerable and being left in the hands of ugly people with their ugly, ugly lies. It's a damned dirty job, and Vinnie's good at it, but that doesn't mean it's fair to abandon him to it when he's just woke up from surgery. It's not a fair world, though, and Dan doesn't have a choice.

The hand moves under his, gives him a thumbs-up, and Vinnie's lips twitch in a weak smile.

"Dan!" Lilla's whisper is frantic. Dan can't see past the curtain, but he guesses that Susan is moving their way. He pulls his hand back from Vinnie's, gives it one last pat, and reaches for his cane.

There's no cover outside the room. With Susan Profitt blocking the only exit, there's just one place to go, and Dan sees that Lilla's already halfway across the room, heading for it. They both duck into the bathroom, and Lilla swings the door until there's just a crack, casting a stripe of light across Dan's hand, across her arm. They both press against the wall, peeking out into Vinnie's room.

Dan realizes, afterwards, that he'd expected Susan to walk in as if she owned the place. Instead, she's cautious and slow, with a little-girl sort of hesitancy about her. And she's alone -- no sign of her brother, of Lococco, of any sort of bodyguard or hanger-on. Just Susan herself, a thin sliver of a woman in the narrow stripe of the room that Dan can see over Lilla's blond head. She flickers in and out of his field of view. Dan shifts his body to follow her, feeling Lilla push back impatiently as he crowds against her until he can see Susan again, bending over Vinnie. Susan's long pale hands move over Vinnie's face, curl to cup his cheek.

Susan wouldn't hurt Vince -- not physically, at least. Dan's pretty sure that he can read the situation well enough to know that, despite all the years he's been out of the game. Still, he feels his hand clench on the head of his cane.

Susan says Vinnie's name, murmurs it into his hair.

Vinnie's lips move, but whatever he says back is soft and hoarse and lost to distance.

Susan's smile, the side of it that Dan can see through the crack between door and frame, is absent and a little sad. She says something that's too soft to hear, and then, a little louder, "Magic, Vinnie. It's magic that pulled you back, my brother's magic. You don't have to believe in it for it to work on you."

Dan looks down at the top of Lilla's head, just as she tilts back to meet his eyes with her level stare and mouths, "Crazy."

Doesn't he know it. Right now, Dan just wants Vinnie out, _out_ of this fucked-up situation with these fucked-up people. Instead, he watches Susan's hands caress Vinnie's face, his shoulders. It should be heartwarming but it's not, because Dan's reminded of a child cradling a toy or a pet more than a woman reaching for her lover. Human beings are nothing but possessions to people like the Profitts, Dan knows, and for all the sweetness that Vinnie might see in Susan, it doesn't change the facts of who and what she is.

Susan kisses Vinnie on forehead, nose, mouth. "I can't leave Mel alone for too long. I'll let him know that you're back. I think he's coming around on you, Vinnie. I think he's learning to accept what you are to me."

_Which is what?_ Dan thinks. _What have you got yourself tangled up in this time, kid?_

He and Lilla stay where they are, pressing against each other in the too-small space, until Susan's quick tapping footsteps have had a chance to fade away; then Dan pushes the door open and Lilla, smiling, stretches as she precedes him into the hospital room. "You seem like a good guy, Dan, but I hope you don't take it the wrong way if I tell you I wasn't looking forward to spending the afternoon locked in a bathroom with you."

Dan laughs. He likes her. "Sorry to say it's mutual, Warfield."

She gives him a slight tilt of the lips. "Call me Lilla. Let's not be strangers."

Vinnie's eyes have closed, and Dan makes no effort to wake him. Instead he drags over one of the hard plastic hospital chairs, not sure if he's sitting vigil or keeping guard or just waiting until Frank comes back. Lilla finds her own chair and slings her coat over the back.

"So," Dan says, as the silence begins to stretch long. "You and Frank."

Lilla leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers. "Yeah," she agrees. "Me and Frank."

And there just isn't anywhere to go from there, especially under her intent, challenging gaze. Dan's beginning to realize that he doesn't know Frank anywhere near as well as he thought he did, but he's still pretty confident that Frank's not the sort of sailor who has a girl in every port. This is something different. And Dan doesn't know what's going on right now with Frank and Jenny -- though he thinks maybe he'll need to get his hands on a bottle of high-grade booze and find out -- and he doesn't want to screw up whatever tentative thing is happening with Lilla, so in the end, he stays silent.

Lilla gets up after a while and comes back with coffee and some magazines from the waiting room. If she called into her home office while she was up, she doesn't say; and if she knows anything new, she isn't sharing. All she says is, "The best coffee's in the second floor lounge," as she slides a cup over to him.

Medical science still can't design a prosthesis that doesn't pinch like hell after awhile, and Dan tips his chair back against the wall as discomfort grows slowly into pain. He's hardly a fragile blossom when it comes to taking his fake legs on and off in public, but he's not sure if he knows Lilla well enough to be comfortable doing it around her, and without his chair he's twitchy at the idea of being legless in what may as well be enemy territory.

So he just waits, he and Lilla, each in their separate world. Vinnie sleeps. Dan wishes he could.

When Frank walks into their silence, he sees them and stops. Exhaustion weighs him down, obvious and palpable. "Well, you look cozy," he says in a weary drawl. "You really think it's a good idea to hang out like this? A Profitt could walk in at any moment."

"Susan was already here," Dan says, shoving his magazine under his coffee cup with its congealing dregs.

Frank's mouth opens, and he just stares for a minute. "I take it she didn't see you, or do we need to start fitting Vince for a new life in the Bahamas?"

"Frank," Lilla says, "we both know what we're doing." There's not a third chair in the room, but she stands and takes Frank's arm. Dan politely doesn't notice how much of Frank's weight shifts to lean on her. "Vinnie's cover is still intact," she adds, tucking her arm through his. "What happened with Baglia?"

Frank gently unlaces himself from her, and sinks into the vacated chair. He presses the heels of his hands against his forehead for a moment before answering, without looking at either of them. "He had an accident. The permanent kind."

Dan's aware of the soft hiss as he takes a breath. 

"Frank," Lilla begins.

"It wasn't me." He looks up at them now, his eyes soft and tired and, surprisingly, less guarded than usual. "Not me, damn it. Jesus. No, I think it was probably one of Profitt's people. The local LEOs have Baglia's body."

Dan picks up his cup and swirls around the dark sludge in the bottom to avoid having to find something to say.

"Well, I ought to see what the folks back home want me to do about it, being as it's my city and all." Lilla rubs a hand over Frank's neck and shoulder; he doesn't respond, and she tucks her hand into her pocket and leaves the two men to a new kind of silence.

"Don't ask," Frank says at last.

Dan wonders, sometimes, what it costs Frank to wear that twenty-foot-thick armor of his. More, he thinks sometimes, than it costs Vinnie to have none at all. "Wasn't going to, partner."

Frank snorts. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "How's Vince?"

Dan nods at the bed. "Sleeping. Docs look pleased."

Some of the tension bleeds out of Frank. "About time something went right for a change."

"You can say that again." Dan levers himself out of the chair; it feels like he's going to put down roots if he has to sit in the damn thing any longer. "Think I'm going to go find a hotel. Like you said, it might not be the smartest thing to hang out around here waiting to blow Vinnie's cover."

Frank grunts. With his glasses dangling from one hand, he takes a small object out of his pocket and flips it to Dan -- a hotel matchbook, black and white. "This is where I'm staying. Room 319."

"I'll see if they got a vacancy. Catch something to eat later."

Frank slides the glasses back onto the bridge of his nose; it makes him look more like Frank McPike, agent in charge, rather than a very tired man who's aged about a year since the last time Dan saw him. "Yeah. How long you out here for?"

"Got the phones covered for a week."

Frank nods. His eyes drift back to Vinnie.

Dan's not privy to most of what's gone down between Frank and Vinnie over the last year, but he can understand why Frank's protective instincts have kicked in so hard for the kid. It's not just because it's Frank's job, though obviously that's part of it; but more than that, it's _Vinnie_. He makes you do that. It's why he's so good at what he does, in ways Dan's pretty sure Vinnie himself doesn't realize. Even if there's no reason why they should, people trust him, like him, want to tell him their secrets. And though he hasn't been Vinnie's lifeline for all that long, Dan's already picked up on why Vinnie draws people like he does -- it's because even though his entire cover might be a lie, he's sincere deep down. Vinnie plays his role by being, on some level, himself. And people respond to that -- to the glimpses of something softer, something _real_ showing through the cracks in Vinnie's Brooklyn-punk exterior.

Dan has a feeling that Frank's going to be staying here for a while, even if he looks like he ought to sleep for a week.

On his way out the door, Dan says over his shoulder, "Second floor has better coffee."

"Thanks," Frank says behind him, and Dan thinks it's a lot more than just a thank-you for a slightly less lousy cup of joe.


End file.
